Punjab Kings (PBKS) batter Shashank Singh almost repeated his heroics from the Gujarat Titans match, as he and Ashutosh Sharma nearly took their team past the finish line against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on April 9 in Punjab in the ongoing IPL 2024.
After being almost out of the game, chasing 182 runs, PBKS were boosted by Shashank (46*) and Ashutosh (33*) as they added 66* runs in 27 balls for the 7th wicket. Needing 29 runs from the last over to win the game, Ashutosh Sharma hammered Jaydev Unadkat for two sixes, while Shashank finished the over with another six, as PBKS fell two runs short of the target.
After the match, Shashank Singh was seen highly dejected and was envisioning what he could’ve done differently to win the game for his side.
PBKS shared the video of the batter with the caption reading: “Chin up, Shashank! You've won our hearts all over again.”
Meanwhile, Shashank attended the post-match press conference where he revealed some insights as to how many uncapped players can deliver sensational performances in IPL 2024.
“The only thing is self-belief. Like the way we play domestic cricket. Like you see SRH’s Nitish (Reddy) here. He usually scores and takes wickets in white-ball and red-ball cricket (in domestic competitions). The way we play in domestic cricket. Nitish and Ashutosh have performed in Mushtaq Ali, Vijay Hazare and Ranji Trophy, (same for) Angkrish,” Shashank was quoted by PTI.
Representing Chhattisgarh in the first-class format, the 32-year-old feels that the uncapped players that have performed in the IPL, have already garnered a good reputation for themselves by performing in the domestic circuit.
Shashank said, “You can say these players are unknown but they are known players in the domestic circuit. They did well in the domestic circuit and their performances in IPL are a reward for that (hard work). You need to continue your domestic performance here. Cricket is a game of self-belief at this level”.
He also revealed that both he and Ashutosh had been taking part in match simulations very similar to the situation against SRH which led them to have full belief in being able to get the win.
“We lost the match by two runs but the most painful thing is to lose a match because we play to win. A defeat is a defeat whether it is by two runs or 20 runs. I must credit Ashutosh for turning the match, the way he batted in the last over. We had believed till the second-last ball that it was possible.
We did a lot of match simulation in the camp before the IPL. We (Ashutosh and I) used to shuffle between 5 and 6 in the batting order. We had been given a lot of scenarios like 60 or 70 off five overs and we chased that target a lot of times. So we always had the belief,” he concluded.
(PTI inputs)
